Short version: a small valley village at the far end of the loop, a short walk from a waterfall you can swim in, and the second night on our three-day tour. Bring something to swim in.
Ma Pi Leng is the photograph people take home. Du Gia is the afternoon they describe.
Getting there
Du Gia sits east of the main loop, reached on a road that narrows and quietens as it goes. You come down out of the limestone into something greener — rice terraces, buffalo, a river. The change is abrupt enough to notice: an hour earlier you were on a cliff, and now you are riding past someone's vegetable garden.
On the three-day tour you arrive in the afternoon of day two, after Ma Pi Leng and the boat. On the four-day tour you get there earlier and with the whole afternoon free, which is the strongest argument for the fourth day.
The waterfall
It is a short walk or a very short ride from the village, and the water collects in a pool cold enough to make you shout and clear enough to see the bottom. People swim, jump in from the rocks if they are the jumping sort, and sit with a beer afterwards while the light goes.
After six or seven hours on a bike this is a better idea than it sounds. Bring swimwear — it is the one thing people forget, and the walk back to change is longer than you want it to be.
The rocks are slippery. Go in feet first, and take the path down rather than the shortcut.
The village in the evening
Dinner is at the homestay and it is usually the big one of the trip — the last night with the group, the guides eating with you, corn wine going round. Somebody will produce a football and there will be a game on whatever flat ground is available. It is the evening most groups remember.
There is not much else, and that is the point. No bars, no shops beyond the essentials, a river and a lot of quiet. If you have spent two days on passes with a camera in your hand, an evening with nothing to see is not a gap in the itinerary.
The morning after
Some people swim again before breakfast, which is a serious thing to do at that temperature and worth it. Then it is the ride back to Ha Giang City — Tha Village on the way, a Tay community in the valley, and a last stretch of road that goes faster than you would like.
